Most human beings will assume that they are connected to the larger whole. In other words, they will bear with them the “imagination,” that they belong to a larger tribe, or, group of people, even if they don’t know all their neighbors, friends, and communities. Yet, this imagination is enough to inspire them to murder and maim others in the name of the nation. In this classic work, Benedict Anderson explains the ‘trigger’ that gives rise to it all.
They are not religion or common consciousness cultivated by the state. But, interesting enough, they are generated by the arrival of common texts. When a whole community of people, read from a single language or a single source, they tend to develop a synthetic consciousness, one where the few become associated with the many. It is this exponential dynamic that allows one to think of him or herself as a part of the millions in its midst. Dying, in the name of one’s nation or religion, is not a spectacular event as such.
It is a form of mutual sacrifice; or collective death pact. Be it China, Japan or the United States, all countries practice it in various degrees. The genius of Benedict Anderson laid in describing the process, and locating it with the arrival of the printing presses. Knowledge, in the Baconian sense, is power. Knowledge, however, is also capable of disemboweling all communities and people – as and when people are urged to rebel against the authorities – only to see hundreds of thousands of people dying at the spike of one great war after the other.